Growing up, my father always stressed the importance of socializing. Good communication is key to coordinating different people. Without it, everyone would do their own thing without caring for what others did and create anarchy. Everyone knows this, whether they acknowledge it explicitly or not. However, some people cut corners in communicating. These people don’t take into account what other people want and would rather focus on themselves and what they want. One might be tempted to call such people callous or self-centered, but even the kindest, most empathetic people imaginable can fall into this trap.
An example of this happens sometimes in the business world. My father occasionally refers to salesmen that try to convince their prospect to buy without taking into account what the customer wants or needs as having “commission breath.” “Commission breath” began as an endearing term from one of my father’s co-workers, but it fits nonetheless. A salesman with commission breath will speak glowingly of the product without regard to whether the product is to the customer’s liking. Again, these salesmen are not self-centered or callous. They are simply passionate about the product and eager to reap the rewards of a successful sale. Everyone understands that. The problem is that they don’t take into account what their customer wants. As a result, they end up advertising a product that the prospect might not be interested in. The stereotype of the annoying door-to-door salesman is what results from this well-intentioned badgering.
Another area people struggle with that is near and dear to my heart is the issue of autistic children. Raising a child with autism can be overwhelming for a parent. The important thing about such children is that one cannot take for granted that they will learn everything you learned over time. Because autism interferes with one’s ability to communicate, autistic children will be oblivious to the things that other children will pick up on and learn without your effort. For that reason, one cannot be complacent in raising them.
Again, I am not implying that parents who make this mistake are in any way selfish or bad parents. If their child did not have autism, then their parenting style would be more than adequate – heck, it’d be downright loving and attentive. Unfortunately, a child with autism has special needs and has to have special attention given to them, the earlier the better. Autistic children require therapy and a teaching style that uses concrete imagery, clear charts, and lots and lots of patience. I’ll need to write an article in the future advising on how to teach children with autism because it deserves a whole essay. My point here, my first piece of advice, is to give the child who needs extra attention early on. It’ll save you a lot of heartache in the future.
Both salesmen with commission breath and the parents of autistic children both are well-intentioned but make a very similar mistake: they fail to tailor their message to their audience. The salesman focuses on his wares because it’s easier to talk about the same product over and over again rather than tailor his approach to each prospect. The parents of the autistic child raise their child like they would any other rather than address that child’s special needs in the way the child requires. In either case, they’d rather stick to what they know best. Again, this is something we can all sympathize with. But it’s for that reason that this mistake needs to be highlighted, or else we’ll keep cutting corners in communication to the detriment of ourselves and everyone around us. In the words of one good preacher, “good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity.”